HIP HOP (An Epigram)

More important than hip
hop is how to be hip
without limping.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

ACCENT ON WHEN

Time, grim collector of souls...
Witnessed time's tick and tag catch up with testimonies;

Oh (how) the twisted minds of but a twisted few
Have ruined thread and morality of many a screw
And what the meditation durst mortality subdue.

Worshipped love in cathedrals of nature
(Or was it the other way around),

Took gospels with generous sprinkles of soul-
Salt, pressed juice and oil and essence into golden
Cups of love, most potent of abraxas.

Who will push or lever, roll stone from sepulchre,
This Golgotha of poisoned praxis,
Like bold Atlas, turn atlas 360 degrees on axis.

Ask not the unanswerable
Of Archimedes and Pythagoras.

Can lines and angles circumscribe
A mind or soul whose life has been a constant song,

Melodies, harmonies, harmonics, enharmonic
Pitches, chords, discords, intervals, scales, modes, degrees,
Notes, tones, octaves of seven and twelve,

Breve, minim, crochet, quaver, beats, upbeat, downbeat,
On the beat, off the beat, after the beat, just plain beat,
Broken, into bars, beats within bars,

Beats across bars, beats under bars, behind bars, beaten with bars,
Beaten bards, broken bards, limbo bars, pause, rest, arrest, eternal rest,
Cardiac arrest, twitch, the final tick of broken metronome.

How long are parallel lines, the parallax to infinity
And at what point exactly does day become dusk, twilight
Become night, return to dawn, to daylight.

Will ripped adonis, Atlas, bare, bronze muscles exposed
In elemental attire, ever tire of the weight,
The orbit and the ambit of waiting to expire;

But then mortality is for mortals and mortal things
Like burnt-out butts of chronologies
And slept-out endings of documentaries.

When, when, when, when, when, when, when...
Will we truly understand the meaning of e = mc squared.
Is there really such a thing as beginning or end

Or is the mire of Nostradamian soothsayers,
Prophets of doom and Mayan calendars,
Nothing but maya and miasma.

Newton, Einstein, Hawkins, we have seen your science,
Heard your grave and sceptic, morbid silence;

Now speak to us of heaven or heavens, or even
Of heavenly designs, and the Divine.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

METRO RASTA

This is the era
of the metro Rasta.
Punk-ass brothers,
young, pretty and black,
talented too,
dread up in dreadlock
braids and weaves and twists and plaits,
partly shaved and marked,
studs with studs and ear-rings,
parfum beaucoup,
pencil-tight trousers,
cool, confident crawl,
tie around throat,
radical,
intellectual,
ladies' man,
listens Lady Caca
and Mavada,
ital, vegan,
(or meatmouth),
metro, macho, all man-
icured and moving up.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

SEE THE HOURS

See the hours scurry
like an orgy
of time lapse photography
or the credits of a movie
by Scorsese.

The mirror grows old
but slowly;
dreams crumple in the
twilight of a wrinkle,
ghosts of glass still tinkle,
still glow and twinkle,
now and then,
with remembrance
of fleeting whens
and laughter of long lost friends'
reunions.

Who among the querulous,
the dubious
or the credulous
can trap the insidious
mouse of time.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

HERE LIES...

Here lies the burnt out loom of Earth,
'Longside the wicked weaves of dearth.

Time bolted, like Usain off starting blocks,
Left in wake, broken clocks and barren rocks.

Once Mama spun and bloomed for all her worth,
Breast fed the many brats that love gave birth,

Tended house and yard and family,
Lover-man took care of husbandry

But suddenly, husbandman went awry,
Squeezing neck while milking titties dry;

Little boys ran round the yard shirt-
Tail, the girls held on to Mama's skirt

And wondered at the lifeless loam,
The burnt out loom, once Mama's home

Before merchants of Venice bought her breath
With tokens, sold science that brought with it death.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

FRIDAY

Friday, most merciful of days, drunk,
staggering landlubber on ship deck
of stormy Sabbath waters; the sea
baptizes anew all day till skin
is a pallid, shrivelled, salted prune.
Gale, soft morning breeze, gently lifts eye-
curtains and waves workout new beaches.
Look up! the bird with wings of silver
owns the sky, flies against a mango-
ripe sun, wary of the sporting gun.
Island to island, islands, pebbles
in pipe dreams of uniting peoples;
pelau, callaloo and curry stew.
Monday returns with an empty heart.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

ROSE

And should I pluck your rose...
raise it to my nose,
ever so tenderly,
inhale the fragrance
of your essence...
and your beauty;
would I be pricked by thorn
or, perhaps, stung by bee?

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

THE BOY WHO HEARD

The boy who heard, understood
And never said a word;
Heard songs of Orpheus
In head and wind;
Who in summer, swam river,
Swam sea, caught crayfish with mermaid
Tails in deep, foreboding, forest pools
Of rippling blue and green, emerald
And crystal-clear, cool water fall-
In’ like lovers, head over hills,
Over rocks of stippled hues;

Travelled universes and ages
With words that flew off pages
In chariots of paper wings,
Big sister, Elva’s history books,
Borrowed tomes and terms
To claim and own,
Burrowed among the leaves
Like tattoo foraging for food
In sweet potato beds, vines
Etched, indelible, on skin
Of worlds within the mind;

Soared and floated, frigate birds
And fork-tailed terns in fine formation,
Plummeted with precision,
Straight for the whites of salt
And spray and eyes
Of salmon dreams’
Steep dives and leaps;
Lobsters in the reefs
Iguanas on the beach
Recurring lucid dreams;
The boy who lived in different worlds,

Travelled and discovered,
Matched strides with Marco Polo,
Fathomed Vernal mysteries
Fathoms below the sea
And miles inside the molten earth;
Suffered bitter gall, betrayal,
Jealousy of the blackamoor,
Mourned William’s Othello,
Full of dole and tragedy;
Put soldier to the sword
And assegai,

Genghis Khan,
Shaka Zulu,
Alexander, Hannibal with elephants’
Indomitable advance,
Crushed provinces like puny ants,
Marched many gruelling miles,
Raid and rule along the way,
Razed whole cities, black and brown,
Right down to the burning ground
And to the cruel stomp of drums,
Planted flags on burial mounds;

Read grim stories from the Brothers Grimm,
Norse mythology and lore,
Erik the Red, Ragnarok and Thor,
Spartans and Gods of ancient Greece,
Pyramids and sphinxes,
Egyptian jinx and fixes,
Exodus to freedom from
Inquisition and martyrdom,
Pirates and priests of ancient Rome;
And came back closer home
To buccaneers like Blackbeard,

Came back home to Miguel Street,
A Hindu street with Christian name,
Came back home to L’Anse Fourmi,
An English ville with Patois name
And relics of indigo days
And memories of bloody bays;
Lonely ghosts of long lost
Jumbies, Anansi stories,
And on and on and on
The boy goes on and on
Into the man, become the song.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance

BLACK BE ATTITUDES...

Wretched are the meek and poor
For they shall inherit the world
Of worries, a world with no end
Of troubles, endless worries,
Endless troubles, endless worries...

Wretched are the weak and poor
For they shall wander through
The wilderness of water-
Less rocks and like the fool of Marley,
Be forever thirsty...

Wretched are the bleak and poor
For they shall eat crumbs of hackneyed bread,
Once manna, of hosannas
And hallelujahs, dangled
From heavy, heaving, three-piece heavens

By fatted shepherds, toting
Fattened collection bags...

Wretched are the meek and poor
For they shall be crucified
Upon the cross of Capital-
Ism, Communism, Socialism,
Colonialism, Marxism...

Wretched are the weak and poor
For they shall inherit hell,
Inherit hell of here and now,
Inherit hell of hereafter,
Inherit hell forever...

Wretched are the rich and wealthy
Whose pockets are never empty

But blessed are the rich who give
All their possessions to the meek
And poor, all they have to the weak
And poor, for they shall want no more,
For they shall want no more...

Blessed are the black and poor
For they are black and poor.

Copyright ©2011 by G. Newton V. Chance